Carl Hall ‘indebted to club’ as Dons chase overdue Championship return

But Hall is the driving force behind the club’s ambition to return to the Championship after eight long years in the third tier of the British game which he hopes will be realised in Sunday’s League One promotion play-off final against North Wales Crusaders at the Eco-Power Stadium (3pm).

Recalling how he first got involved with the Dons, Hall said: “Andrew Vincent and myself got the numbers of all the UK clubs and we started to contact them in alphabetical order but we didn’t get any joy until we got through to Doncaster and spoke to their secretary who in turn spoke to fellow New Zealander Tony Kemp, who played for the club as a teenager in 1986-87, and he said ‘sign them’ so we both came across after signing a contract.”

Like Kemp, who went on to play in the top flight as well as for New Zealand, Hall quickly became a big hit with Doncaster fans in a four-year period during which he feels he played some of the best of his career.

He left to join Bradford midway through the Dons’ promotion-winning campaign and also played for such as Leeds and Featherstone Rovers before returning to the South Yorkshire club towards the end of his career where he continued to score tries on a regular basis.

“I’ve always had a close affinity with the club and I’ve been involved with the Dons in five different decades,” said Hall, who helped save the club from going under in 2009 and whose decision to persuade Paul Cooke to come out of retirement paved the way for the club’s 2012 Championship One promotion success.

“I genuinely believe that the Dons have contributed to everything I’ve done so I always feel indebted to the club and to (Doncaster Rovers’ CEO) Gavin Baldwin for all the support he has given me,” he said.

Baldwin played a vital role in the 2013 takeover which gave the Dons access to various departments at the football club while allowing them to continue to operate largely independently under the Club Doncaster umbrella with Hall, whose health had started to suffer due to the strain of running the club, retaining much of his authority.

Relegated to the third tier at the end of the 2015 season just 12 months after finishing fourth, Hall is desperately hoping that it will be a case of third time lucky for the Dons, beaten finlists in the last two years, in Sunday’s final which he regards as the club’s biggest home game in the recent past.

Hall, who served as vice-president of the RFL for over a year – something he regards as a ‘great honour’ – feels that not only have the Dons got the players to win the final and move forward but also the coaching staff.

He brought former Hull FC and GB international Richard Horne to the club in June 2017 and despite the Dons failure to climb out of League One since then he has been impressed by his coaching and man-management skills and has stuck by him during the last six years during which time the two men have forged a close bond.

Like Hall, Horne has remained loyal to the cause despite temping offers to work at a higher level.

“Richard has had ample opportunity to leave the club and coach at Super League level but he’s happy here, as is his number two Chris Plume who has also been approached by another club,” said Hall.